In Iraq’s battle for Fallujah, residents gird for long fight

BAGHDAD — Five days into an Iraqi military operation to push Islamic State fighters out of Fallujah, residents still inside the city are preparing for a long battle, with some saying they fear being trapped between two forces they don’t fully trust.

More than 50,000 people remain in the center of the Sunni majority city, which has been under control of the extremist group for more than two years. Those who want to leave describe deteriorating humanitarian conditions, but they also say they are wary of the Iraqi government forces that have pledged to liberate them.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the offensive late Sunday. Backed by airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition, Iraqi forces are tightening their grip around Fallujah and dislodging IS militants from key areas.

“The airstrikes are almost constant,” one man told The Associated Press by phone from inside the city Thursday. The resident said that after living for weeks on rice, canned food and processed cheese, those stocks were beginning to run low.

While many in Fallujah welcomed the takeover of the city by the Sunni-led Islamic State group as an alternative to what they considered their marginalization at the hands of Iraq’s leaders, conditions in the city have deteriorated under the extremists.

The city 40 miles west of Baghdad has a history of anti-government sentiment in post-2003 Iraq.

After the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein, the city’s 250,000 residents initially supported a Sunni insurgency that rose up against U.S. forces and the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad. Militants from al-Qaida in Iraq fought two bloody battles with U.S. troops in Fallujah in 2004 that killed more than 100 Americans and wounded more than 1,000.

This week, as the fighting intensified, food and water are becoming hard to find, residents told the AP by phone and the Internet. The Iraqi forces don’t want the militants to escape the city, and coalition officials estimated earlier this week that 500 to 700 IS fighters remain in Fallujah, nestled among the civilian population.

Iraqi military officials insist that safe “corridors” will be established to allow civilians to flee, but residents say IS-controlled checkpoints have made that nearly impossible. The United Nations said nearly 800 people have fled in the past week, but most were from the outskirts where IS control is weaker.

A 21-year-old former resident, who identified himself only as Ahmed, said he fled Fallujah more than a year ago — but even then, the militants’ tight grip on the city made it nearly impossible to get out. He said he had to walk for hours through farmland and dirt roads to make it to Baghdad.

When this week’s operation was announced, one of his cousins tried to flee, but the man, who is in his 30s, was caught and killed, Ahmed said.

“After they caught him, they killed him and dumped his body in the street” to deter others from trying to flee, he said.

Ahmed and other Fallujah residents say they most fear abuse at the hands of the Shiite militias. In past operations, Shiite forces have been accused of human rights abuses against Sunni civilians.